WQXE NEWS

The American Red Cross of South Central Kentucky will be installing free smoke alarms and reviewing critical fire safety information with Elizabethtown-area households from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 26.

“It’s part of our national Sound the Alarm event where we go in and work to make homes safer,” said American Red Cross of South Central Kentucky Executive Director Jennifer Capps. “We’ll send out teams of two to three people and they will go into the home. They’ll provide some home fire safety education. They’ll help the family create an evacuation plan, and then we’ll install free smoke alarms.”

The event is free and open to anybody in the community.

“Our smoke alarms expire after 10 years, so if you pause and think, your smoke alarms may be expired in your home, so we want to make sure that we’re not only checking those as the time changes and replacing batteries and those sorts of things, but if your smoke alarm is more than 10 years old you definitely need new ones, and there are so many people that don’t even have working smoke alarms,” Capps said.

Capps says a working smoke alarm cuts the risk of death in a fire by half.

As the organization is looking to reach as much of the community as possible, the Red Cross is seeking volunteers to assist with the campaign.

“If you need smoke alarms and you want to volunteer, we’ll make sure that your home is on your route with your team that goes out and you can knock that out during that shift,” Capps said.

Visit www.soundthealarm.org/kentucky to register to volunteer or to schedule a home visit.

Two juveniles were killed and two juveniles were injured in an early-morning crash in Hardin County Saturday.

According to the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office, at approximately 2:20 a.m. on March 29 deputies responded to a single-vehicle crash involving injuries on the 3,700 block of Saint John Road.

The sheriff’s office says the preliminary investigation indicates that the vehicle was traveling east on Saint John Road when the driver lost control. The vehicle exited the roadway on the left shoulder, rolling multiple times.

A front-seat passenger was ejected from the vehicle and suffered fatal injuries. They were pronounced dead at the scene by the Hardin County Coroner’s Office. The driver was also ejected from the vehicle, sustaining life-threatening injuries. After being transported to Baptist Health Hardin and later the University of Louisville Hospital, Hardin County Sheriff John Ward confirmed they ultimately died due to their injuries. Two juvenile passengers that were in the back seat sustained minor injuries and were transported to Baptist Health Hardin for treatment.

The Hardin County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation of the crash is ongoing.

In a release Sunday afternoon, Hardin County Schools Superintendent Teresa Morgan said: “We have learned that two Central Hardin High School juniors, Tristen Shrouder and Gerald Lyons, have passed away as the result of an automobile accident. They both had the promise of bright futures and both were incredible young men. We all share in the pain and the sense of tragic loss that these families have. Losing anyone is horrific but the loss of two young lives cuts us to our core. I ask the entire Hardin County Schools family and our community to keep Tristen’s family and Gerald’s family in your thoughts and in your hearts. These losses come at a time when our students and staff are away from school because of spring break.”

The HCS Crisis Response Team will have counselors for all students and staff in the Central Hardin Library Monday from 10 a.m. to noon, and a list of professional counseling services is available on the school’s website.